As friends become enemies and enemies become villains, the Ironside underbelly casts a very wide shadow over everyone within its walls. The academy that once promised Isobel Carter salvation has pulled back the curtain and revealed itself for what it truly is.

A pretty little prison.

She may have been reduced to a puppet behind a screen, but at least the Alphas of Dorm A are there to heighten her performances, quicken her breath, and flood her face with colour for the cameras.

Maybe they will even catch her when she falls.

Or maybe they have been pulling the strings all along.

The bars of her prison may be gilded, but survival is a messy game, and what do Sigmas do when they can’t keep their hands clean?

They get filthy.

So, I read half this book a week ago and then forgot about it for a couple of days and then came back and finished it and it did not confuse me, jolt me, or irritate me in any way. I was able to get right back into the world I was reading and disappear inside the story.

What I have found interesting in this series thus far is the muted element of spice. Because a lot of reverse harem stories either attack you with spice from the first moment or slowly build you up to a crescendo of spice. I’m not saying there is a lack of spice in this book, far from it, just that I appreciate how it has been woven around the plot, sort of like a support character, rather than a main attraction.

I knew it was a no-go assuming this would be a quiet book for Isobel. She doesn’t have a quiet bone in her body and between her chaos and the ten Alpha’s, shit happens!

The ending of book two was quite climactic, so I was almost edgy with curiosity and suspicion as to how this book would play out. There is a new unknown element that hasn’t revealed all its cards yet, so while I was reading I was constantly pushing out theories as to what I thought it meant, where it was going, and what would ultimately happen. News flash – none of my questions are answered in this book which makes me think of it as an evolving problem that will come to fruition later down the line.

It seems impossible to admit that Isobel has had more trauma heaped upon her shoulders, but there you have it, it happened. The events in the final moments of book two shaped the Isobel we encounter in book three. I honestly expected her to break more than she did. For a disfunctional character, she holds herself together remarkably well which is – to me at least – a sign of good writing.

This book finally clues the reader in on the secret the alphas are working towards. All things considered with the plot at large, I saw this coming. It was the only reason that made absolute sense but I did enjoy the mystery surrounding it in the previous two books.

I was watching a video the other day where a woman judged the men before her as whether they were cheaters or not. Cheaters went into the red box. Only two men made it to the green box. I thought of this when I was nearing the end of this book and all the lie reveals that the alphas have kept. I almost found myself wanting to say ‘get in the bin’. As truths were revealed but Isobel took it rather more calmly than I had anticipated. I think she was frustrated and saddened by the lies but she also seemed resigned to them. And while it wasn’t necessarily written this way, I almost felt like Isobel had checked herself out of the conversation.

The alphas in question: Theo, Moses, Cian. Elijah, Gabriel, Niko, Oscar, Killian, Kalan, and Mikel, almost stepped up in this book. Despite what links them to Isobel it’s almost like they finally realised what a strain they were putting on Isobel and how much of an outsider she felt in Dorm A. It showed a level of maturity among them that they’d sort of collectively evolved to realise that the links affected Isobel a whole lot more than they affected them.

Theo is still happy-go-lucky. Moses is still a grumpy anti-social, and Oscar is still dangerous.

Cian is more kind and attentive, Elijah is more open, and Gabriel is more inclusive.

Niko is more forward, Killian embraces change more, and Mikel shares more of himself.

Lastly, Kalan steps up as a leader and mentor.

All ten of them have vastly different personalities and in a realistic setting I struggle to see how this dynamic would work. However, this is not a realistic setting, this is a novel, so it fits right in.

Ten hotheads in a room are bound to explode and that has almost become a running theme. I understand that there is an emphasis on the fobidden aspect of it all and how nothing should be ‘completed’ and that ‘living in limbo’ is best but is it really? Plot wise – yes. Reader wise – infuriating.

I refuse to believe this plot line was written for shits and giggles. It has to have some point to it, so I am bordering on frustration that this hasn’t moved forward. I need to see some evolution in this cycle otherwise I’m just reading a series with no ending. There are a further 3 books – so there is hope out there.

The ending…well, cliffhanger again. And actually for me, unexpected. I’d completely written off two characters and perhaps I shouldn’t have. Again, it shows good writing that the author was able to completely shift my attention and allow me to believe that these two characters were no longer important and would fall into oblivion. The cliffhanger is almost two-parted for me. Or rather there are two sections to it. The first, as I’ve stated was unexpected. The second part, I expected it to happen at some point just not when it did. It will make the first few chapters of book four very interesting indeed.